Our NO RISK GUARANTEE: "You'll be thrilled with your images or we'll do whatever is necessary to thrill you. And if we still can't do that, we'll give you back every penny you paid us with no hassle or no hard feelings". It doesn't get much better than that!

MEET MARC

Marc M. Friedland

IF YOU WANT TO GAIN AN INSIGHT INTO WHO I AM, HOW I THINK AND WHY YOU SHOULD ENGAGE ME TO BE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER OF CHOICE, THIS MESSAGE IS FOR YOU . . .

I began my journey into photography with a 35mm Pentax ME camera and shot Slide Film. The reason I didn't use Negative Film is because with Slide Film, what you shoot is what you get. With Negative Film, the Lab corrected for exposure and color balance and you never knew if you were a good photographer or a bad photographer! And when I got back the slides, I used the results as a learning experience to get better. Just think if you didn't have a preview LCD screen on your digital camera or cell phone to give you instant feedback as to what the image looked like as soon as you clicked the shutter!

The moral of the story here is the experience is indeed a great teacher. Virtually all people (with the exception of professional photographers) who have a digital camera today use it almost exclusively on an Automatic or Program setting that includes the little icons that depict nighttime, sports, etc. In essence, they are letting the camera think for them and the resulting image is at the mercy of the camera designers who decided how the image should look. If suddenly their camera became inoperable on any of those settings, they would be at a loss to take a good photograph. And that's the difference between a pseudo-amateur and a professional photographer.

Using either semi-manual or manual settings and a combination of lenses and light modifiers, I can unleash my creativity and alter a number of settings to complete my vision of the final image. Perhaps I want the sky to be darker and my subject still be bright. Or perhaps I want the focus to be on my subject and blur out the background. It's a piece of cake with the proper knowledge and equipment.

Another thing . . . most non-professionals shoot JPG files. What they don't understand is what is happening to all those little photons that are coming through the lens and hitting the sensor. The JPG settings actually TOSS OUT a given number of pixels to make a smaller file. This is in sharp contrast to the Camera RAW setting that I use. Camera RAW captures every one of those tiny photons and is the digital equivalent of what used to be a film negative. So a JPG is really a partial negative.

The lesson to be learned here is that there is far less tolerance of capturing highlights and shadows (and also adjusting them in post-capture) if a JPG format is used. This becomes very important in low-light situations or where there is a tremendous variance in the scene between highlights and shadows. Camera RAW is like an insurance policy in case you didn't nail the shot.

A long time ago another professional photographer told me, "When you are getting paid to do a job, you always have to perform, regardless of what happens to your equipment!" From that day forward, I began to carry duplicates and triplicates of cameras, strobes/speedlights, lenses, batteries, digital media cards, etc. And wouldn't you know it.

My time for the "Fickle Finger of Fate" finally came. I was engaged to photograph a major event with 900 women at a major hotel at a luncheon for a well-known political figure. About 15 minutes before the start of the program, my primary (expensive) professional camera froze up. The red light stayed on even when I took out the battery/CF card. After about 10 seconds of an OMG moment, I took a deep breath, reached in my photo case and pulled out my BACKUP camera body and photographed the entire program without a hitch and without anyone knowing what happened. And my client was very pleased with the results. Just image the egg that would have been on my face had I not been able to perform! My name would have been severely tarnished.

My photography journey led me to photograph my son as he was growing up and to create beautiful scenic and travel images as I ventured through the United States, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Tahiti and the Caribbean. In 2002 I purchased my first digital camera and that really started my purchase of tons of equipment. Several years later I got on a kick to photograph shorebirds and traveled to California, Florida and the coast of Texas with a LONG lens like you see on the sidelines at football games.

And now my journey took me to 2009 when I decided that another "mountain I wanted to climb" was to become a Professional Portrait Photographer. I studied for six months with a retired New York City photographer, Terry Wier, who instilled in me my passion for people photography. His favorite saying was "It's not the lens on your camera, it's the lens on your heart!" I then built a residential Portrait Studio and started investing time and much money in learning and enhancing my craft.

This involved attending International conferences and seven week-long schools, attending workshops/programs/seminars and listening to zillions of online educational Webinars and DVDs and also reading voraciously. They say it takes 10,000 hours to become a professional in anything and I've done that in photography! But it doesn't stop there. I believe that a man's reach should exceed his grasp and that why I continually have a thirst for knowledge. Remember, there are none so wise as those who know what they do not know.

I share of all my journey with you to help you understand that my PASSION is PHOTOGRAPHY! I'm not trying to build a huge photography business so that one day I can sit back and enjoy the fruits of my labor. I can already do that. Rather, I love to work with people regardless of whether it's for a Family Portrait, a High School Senior Portrait, a Wedding, an Event or Commercial Photography. I really love to create beautiful images that will stand the test of time. Images that will be displayed in a frame on one's wall in their home or business or in an artistically-designed Album/Art Book.

FYI, I don't have a need to have fees for my products and services that are at the top of the market, but I know that I need to receive a competitive fee for my professional training, talent, experience and equipment that I bring to the table. Of course, you could always search on Craigslist to find a photographer who will have a cheap price, but you would do well to heed the advice of Sir Frederick Henry Royce [of Rolls-Royce, Ltd, 3/27/1863-4/22/1933]: "The Quality is Remembered Long After the Price is Forgotten".

One of my UNIQUE factors that differentiates me from most other photographers is that whatever I photograph comes with my NO RISK GUARANTEE: "You'll be thrilled with my work or I'll do whatever is necessary to thrill you. And if I can't do that, I'll refund every penny you paid me with no hassle or no hard feelings!" A pseudo-amateur can't afford to say this. You should know that I've NEVER had to do this.

I look forward to working together with you. Just call me at 469.223.7766 or contact me through the CONTACT button on my Website.